ISLAMABAD, April 21: Pakistan on Monday expressed high hopes for early resumption of talks with India following statements by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during his weekend visit to occupied Kashmir, and said it expected to hear officially more from New Delhi in a couple of days in this regard.

Foreign Office Spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan, answering questions at his weekly news briefing, said Pakistan believed negotiations could succeed only when they were held without preconditions.

He said Mr Vajpayee’s statement was a positive one after a long time from New Delhi and hoped that it would be followed by some more positive steps.

Pakistan, he recalled, had already welcomed Mr Vajpayee’s statement and said it was welcomed because Islamabad had always insisted that issues could only be resolved through negotiations and not through use of force or threat to use force.

Islamabad, he said, had not been found wanting in taking initiatives to invite the Indian prime ministers to Pakistan for negotiations. He recalled that one such initiative was demonstrated at the Kathmandu Saarc summit when President Pervez Musharraf went up to Mr Vajpayee and shook hands with him, inviting him to resume talks.

The spokesman said the anticipated talks which could be held at any level and anywhere according to New Delhi’s suggestion, would be all “encompassing” with discussions on all subjects, including the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

In reply to a question, Mr Aziz Khan said Pakistan would not shy away from adopting the Saarc route for talks on some of bilateral political issues in case it was recommended by the Saarc forum.

The spokesman re-asserted that no cross-border armed incursions were being made from Pakistan and said if there was any misperception that could be removed only if, as suggested repeatedly by Pakistan, India agreed to employment of reinforced UN or neutral observers in Kashmir. The observers, he added, could probe and verify allegations about cross-border movements.

He said Pakistan had no chemical weapons as it adhered to the United Nations Convention against manufacture and use of such weapons apart from signing an agreement with India in 1992 to this effect. Though India, he said, continued clandestinely its chemical weapons programme even after that agreement but added it had abandoned it now.

The spokesman described as totally baseless and fictitious recent reports that there had been a border clash with Afghanistan. He said some unidentified “vested interests” apparently sought to create mischief and misunderstanding between Kabul and Islamabad.

He recalled that Pakistan was a signatory to the Bonn agreement on Afghanistan and remained committed to it. Islamabad, he said, employed 50,000-60,000 troops in the tribal territory adjoining Afghanistan and had rounded up some 450 terrorists as a member of international coalition working towards restoration to peace and reconstruction of war-ravaged Afghanistan.